Enjoyable weekend with HughN & RRSTDV8 driving around lanes in Wales as part of an organised group trip. Car, despite a somewhat dodgy ARC throwing up a lean warning and an annoyingly squeaky rear (now a thump), behaved impeccably and got me places through a wide variety of terrain safely and comfortably. Far more capable than the driver for sure.

My dash cam only had 2 hours recording (thought more) so overwrote Saturday's events ( ) so nothing of Hugh who was in front got a couple of pics of Wayne & a video of him doing Bomb Hole on Strata Florida (not a great one though, sorry!). In fact, I was really cr@p on the image recording front





Slightly better one of Wayne crossing a ford today



Got some better ones of some of the lanes today on dash cam, so will upload them over the next couple of days

Great to meet Hugh & Wayne

looks like you guys had a good time  2003 BMW M5 - 5 Litres of V8 Optimax Slurping Goodness in Carbon Black

2013 SDV6 HSE Black Edition- Orkney Grey with Ebony & Ivory. LR Facelift RAI, Genuine G4 Expedition Rack, 4x Warn SBD-160 Spotlights, Warn 9.5XPS Winch, Mantec Underbody Protection and Sump Guard, Full Easy Lift Suspension Module, LR Light Guards, Light Force HTX230 Hybrid spotlights, 18” Compomotive PD1881 on 265/65/18 BF Goodrich KO2, ARB fridge, TuffTrek awning 😎

It was a great weekend of off-roading in comfort. You'd have loved it Chris, no Spanish dust getting everywhere for a start! Plenty of Welsh rain, however.

It was great to meet two more members of the forum and to see these vehicles doing what they do so well - surprising people with how competent they are off road. At one point, the guide said over the radio "This is a bit tricky, if the Range Rovers struggle there's a way around". Both RRS just said "hold my beer" and walked up it.

I enjoyed ticking off the Strata Florida. It was pretty easy as the fords weren't very deep - the dry February certainly helped us there.

Sadly I missed the last hour of lanes as I had a 3.5 hour drive home. Glad I left when I did as the M4 was shut at some point on a stretch that I used on my way home.

I've got several hours of dash cam video which, if I can find time, I'll make in to a few highlight clips.

Here's three. One of the bomb hole with Pufftmw making it look easy (the noise is his tow bar ploughing Welsh bedrock!). One of him in the ford and a brief bit of us going through some "puddles". Shortly after these "puddles" we decided to route round the last "puddle" having watched the guide 110 up to his door handles! We'd have drowned our RRS as neither has a snorkel.





 2012 SDV6 - it's missing a couple of cylinders
2008 TDV8 - it was a labour of love and is much missed

Last edited by RRSTDV8 on Mon Mar 04 2019 12:26pm. Edited 1 time in total

Crikey the squeaking from that bush was driving my freakin' crazy after 2 days!

RRSTDV8, this was the near the start of the 2 lanes you missed out on - very steep and very rocky. It went up like this for quite a way for about 550ft of climb and "eased off" a bit for the last 150ft! At the end there was a fingernail sized nick in one of my tyres, so I can quite well imagine you may have picked up a couple more for your collection.



When I can work out how to join 2 minute segment mp4s together, I'll put up the whole lane.

Looks like a great weekend run. It always made me laugh when people commented on seeing RRS’s getting down and dirty offroad like they weren’t mean to, yet those same people didn’t bat an eyelid when an L322 or an L405 was in the convoy and doing exactly the same things. I suppose it’s because you see so few RRS owners trying offroad stuff compared to FFRR owners. Puff, looks like you might have had 2nd thoughts about that fallen tree........
Envious? You bet! 2020 Pangea Green 1st Edition D240 New Defender 110 is here and loving it
2018 Melting Silver Mini Countryman PHEV - soon to be replaced
2015MY Corris Grey SDv6 HSE Dynamic, the best car I have ever owned, totally reliable only a cou0le of rattles in 3 years, now no longer in my care
Also in my garage is a 1996 TDi300 Defender 90 County HT made into a fake CSW

Believe it or not, these are the edited highlights from Day 1:



This photo, this photo and this photo didn't turn out too well but if you click on the black blob with an arrow they are navigable with the mouse.

This one gets all three of us in:


A roll angle of 39° at one point.

Having got round all that on a set of summer tyres, I dropped a wheel into a puddle on a bit of metalled road and the edge of the pothole took the tyre off the rim. With everybody rallying round, we found that the spare (checked over during the week) was also deflated (words will be had!). The locking wheel-nut then broke. No phone signal, the nearest phone box didn't take cash and when I called at a house to borrow a phone, the owner was a bit shocked to see a wet and muddy person at her door and obviously thought I was an axe-murderer.

Two hours later, a local garage had the wheel-nut off, fixed the spare and fitted to the normal wheel a spare tyre I had in the car (as you do). The lightweight that I am, I bailed out of the Sunday - I was knackered, damp and had a 285 mile trip home.

Thumbs-up for the EasyLift.

It was good to meet another couple of forum members and show the guys in the tricked-up Discos and Defenders how capable the RRS is. When they lift a wheel, it gets noisy and unseemly: when the RRS lifts a wheel, it quietly carries on without a fuss.

Last edited by HughN on Mon Mar 04 2019 4:21pm. Edited 1 time in total

I didn't realise you'd dinged the tyre on the road - I thought it was on one of the farm tracks coming back to the road. It was a good team effort to get you jacked up etc., just annoying that the security nut did it's job too well! I think you were probably wise to avoid the second day as I doubt your pure road tyres would have been very happy on some of the rocks in the rutted sections.

Popped to my usual tyre place today and they confirm what I suspected - one tyre is cut to the cords in the sidewall. As both fronts are fairly well worn now and showing so on the road in the wet, I've ordered a set of 4 new tyres. Going to try the Pirelli Scorpion AT+. They're £20 OTR a corner more than the AT3 but having had Grabber AT and Grabber AT3, I thought I'd go back to Pirelli - had the excellent ATR in the past. Indeed, the ATR might have been the tyre for the weekend as it's pretty tough with strong sidewalls.

Glad I went with Plan A and used the worn tyres for the weekend rather than fitting new beforehand (Plan B).  2012 SDV6 - it's missing a couple of cylinders
2008 TDV8 - it was a labour of love and is much missed

Tim in Scotland wrote:

I suppose it’s because you see so few RRS owners trying offroad stuff compared to FFRR owners.

The RRS has an image associated with footballers and their wives, sadly. Big polished wheels and questionable body kits/colour schemes. It was probably the first of Land Rover's urban vehicles, in image at least, presaging the route LR have taken (arrival of Evoque, DS, Velar, death of Defender). The FFRR is probably still associated with the countryside in many eyes, although even that is heading ever more in to "blingdom", sadly.

The FFRR does have noticeably better ground clearance than the RRS1 (and D3/4) which would make it a sound choice for off roading in comfort. I notice that the L322 has more off road bits available for it than the L320 too. Again, the Sunday polishers aren't going to be buying sliders for their pride and joy.

Ah well, those of us who have/do make use of the full range of the RRS's abilities can feel smug when the lifted D1 owners say "the Sport is rubbish off road". I did smile at the shouted instruction on the video of me going through the bomb hole: "power!" was the call. Nah, this is not a Defender/Disco 1 with 90bhp, after all, but something with 250bhp. Flooring it is not necessary thank you.  2012 SDV6 - it's missing a couple of cylinders
2008 TDV8 - it was a labour of love and is much missed

What was with the hotel though, Wayne? It had everything going for it, but seemed as empty as Overlook Hotel in The Shining. It could/should be buzzing with people. No wonder it was reasonably priced.

RRSTDV8 wrote:

Tim in Scotland wrote:

I suppose it’s because you see so few RRS owners trying offroad stuff compared to FFRR owners.

The RRS has an image associated with footballers and their wives, sadly. Big polished wheels and questionable body kits/colour schemes. It was probably the first of Land Rover's urban vehicles, in image at least, presaging the route LR have taken (arrival of Evoque, DS, Velar, death of Defender). The FFRR is probably still associated with the countryside in many eyes, although even that is heading ever more in to "blingdom", sadly.

The FFRR does have noticeably better ground clearance than the RRS1 (and D3/4) which would make it a sound choice for off roading in comfort. I notice that the L322 has more off road bits available for it than the L320 too. Again, the Sunday polishers aren't going to be buying sliders for their pride and joy.

Ah well, those of us who have/do make use of the full range of the RRS's abilities can feel smug when the lifted D1 owners say "the Sport is rubbish off road". I did smile at the shouted instruction on the video of me going through the bomb hole: "power!" was the call. Nah, this is not a Defender/Disco 1 with 90bhp, after all, but something with 250bhp. Flooring it is not necessary thank you.

I did chuckle at the POWER call! i love how you can just let the locker do its stuff and just crawl up things in complete control with no fuss  2003 BMW M5 - 5 Litres of V8 Optimax Slurping Goodness in Carbon Black

2013 SDV6 HSE Black Edition- Orkney Grey with Ebony & Ivory. LR Facelift RAI, Genuine G4 Expedition Rack, 4x Warn SBD-160 Spotlights, Warn 9.5XPS Winch, Mantec Underbody Protection and Sump Guard, Full Easy Lift Suspension Module, LR Light Guards, Light Force HTX230 Hybrid spotlights, 18” Compomotive PD1881 on 265/65/18 BF Goodrich KO2, ARB fridge, TuffTrek awning 😎

HughN wrote:

What was with the hotel though, Wayne? It had everything going for it, but seemed as empty as Overlook Hotel in The Shining. It could/should be buzzing with people. No wonder it was reasonably priced.

It was odd, wasn't it? A bit annoying about having to go down in to town for dinner. I can see his point about not having the kitchen open in winter, but it did make the place a bit rubbish. Had I known there was no grub available, I'd have gone to the hotel Tom used. They got a full cooked breakfast too!

Ah well, live and learn.  2012 SDV6 - it's missing a couple of cylinders
2008 TDV8 - it was a labour of love and is much missed

Buckster wrote:

i love how you can just let the locker do its stuff and just crawl up things in complete control with no fuss

I did most of the weekend in just low range. I used rock crawl on some of the rocky climbs (like the bomb hole) as the rock was wet and I fancied the control and not smacking the belly on a rock! But just using low range meant the diff locked up as required anyway without using special programmes. I was impressed how effective the diff is and how quickly it reacts without you even noticing a wheel slipping.

The RRS is bloody good off road as you know well.

I just wish the gearbox in mine was as good on tarmac and not so bloody slow witted.  2012 SDV6 - it's missing a couple of cylinders
2008 TDV8 - it was a labour of love and is much missed

This is the last climb of the weekend. I Strava'd it on my phone - 500ft rise in 1/2 mile, so about 19% gradient



Sorry - no sound, don't know why the mic wasn't working.

That does look to be a bit tyre unfriendly in places! Glad there was no sound - we'd go mad listening to your suspension bushes squeaking!  2012 SDV6 - it's missing a couple of cylinders
2008 TDV8 - it was a labour of love and is much missed